


Ghelekabad Books

by icarus_chained



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Historical, Books, Bookstores, Crimes & Criminals, Cultural Differences, Friendship, Gen, Industry, Invention, Language Barrier, Languages and Linguistics, Renaissance, Technology
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-16
Updated: 2013-02-26
Packaged: 2017-11-29 12:32:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/686997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an Erebor recovered under Thrain and in the process of rebuilding under his son Thorin, a wandering bookseller named Bilbo Baggins falls in with a bad, or at least rather suspect, crowd, and somewhat accidentally starts an industrial revolution with the help of a young scribe and a brain-damaged toymaker.</p>
<p>Canon-divergent AU, focused on Bilbo, Ori and Bifur (with attendant families)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Bookseller and the Thieves

**Author's Note:**

> Ghelekabad, if my neo-khuzdul dictionary hasn't failed me, is Khuzdul for 'good mountain'. Anyone who knows German might thus have an idea where this is going ...

The thin sound of a kettle whistling should barely have made a dent in the chatter of the marketplace. However, thanks to the persistent empty space around the book stall, it sounded quite loud indeed, at least to the rather forlorn hobbit perched on a stool beside the portable stove.

At least that was one good thing about dwarves, Bilbo Baggins thought, with a decent stab at optimism. Books, particularly Westron and Elvish books, might barely sell in a largely dwarven marketplace like Dale, but at least you got ingenious little things like the camp stove out of the deal. A strange little thing, metal bottle and wire mesh, apparently it was a variant on the gas lamps used down in the mines. Bilbo hadn't really understood the eager and partially Khuzdul explanation the merchant had given him. But the thing made having a cup of tea possible without ever leaving his stall, and for that a hobbit must be entirely appreciative.

Still, he thought, sitting back on his tall stool behind the stall with a hot cup of tea now warming his hands. Perhaps it was time he packed up, and found a caravan out of here. Dale was a city of men, still in reconstruction and well on the way back to greatness, the small matter of a recently deceased dragon having been taken care of. It was rich, yes, on the recovered treasures of the neighboring Erebor and the custom of dwarves. But it was not conducive, it seemed, to book selling. For all the richness and life of the market place, the focus here was still on rebuilding, on reliable wealth. And while there might be men willing to part with money for books from the south and west, mostly those up from Gondor and further south again, the dwarves were far from eager to spend good gold or silver on the words of men or, Mahal forbid, _elves_. Which, since a good portion of Bilbo's stock had come via the libraries of Rivendell and Isengard and Minas Tirith, was somewhat problematic.

No, he thought, disconsolately. Dale might have seemed a good idea back in Lothlorien, with all of the Wild East to explore and appeal to his Tookish spirit, but from a purely Baggins point of view, it just wasn't good enough for business. The dwarves were too much of the economic force, and what dwarves dealt in words at all dealt primarily in Khuzdul, which was rather beyond Bilbo's present means.

A caravan south, he thought, absently sipping at his tea, smiling faintly for the taste of yellow daisy. Gondor, maybe. He'd collected enough Sindarin and northern texts in exchange that it might be profitable, and he could perhaps meet up with Gandalf there. His friend had told him in Lothlorien that he had business south this year. 

Yes, he mused. Yes, that might well be the right course.

One should never have such thoughts unattended, he decided later. One should never resolve oneself so firmly to anything without first checking the surroundings. Because it was that precise moment, _naturally_ , that a shadow fell over his stall. A shadow that was followed, before he had even turned his head, by a strangled yelp that had him leaping on his stool, and then a loud, harsh voice boomed out: 

"Theft! This is not a good day to be following in your brother's footsteps, Ori brother of Nori!"

Bilbo, now wearing a rather large portion of his tea for a neckerchief, very carefully lowered his cup onto the planking, and looked over his stall. To the bizarre and rather alarming sight of large dwarf with a bald, tattooed head (and far more weapons than Bilbo was really comfortable with) holding a smaller and, to Bilbo's admittedly inexpert eye, younger dwarf by the scruff of the neck, glaring at him like he had done something utterly terrible.

And the smaller dwarf, squeaking up at his captor, held something clutched protectively to his chest like it was a precious thing. For all the large hand shaking him like a leaf, his arms were wrapped tight around ... around a book. In point of fact, one of _Bilbo's_ books (from Rivendell, he noted absently, stories of the Dunedain). The dwarf stared wildly around from under his rough pudding bowl of hair, shaking and scared and flushed with shame, and curled instinctively tight to protect the manuscript from harm.

It was odd, Bilbo would think later. When the caravans to Gondor had been and gone, and him still in Dale. Thinking of that absurd, surreal image, the two dwarves fighting beside his stall with one of his treasure clutched desperately between them. 

It was truly odd, he thought, the shapes fate could come in.

\---

"I really cannot thank you enough," the grey-haired dwarf said again, pouring Bilbo another cup of tea with hands that were still shaking faintly. "Or apologise. Master Baggins, I am truly sorry for my brother's actions. And ... and so very grateful, for your intercession on his behalf. If there is anything, any reparation, that our family might offer you ..."

Bilbo, perched on the edge of one of the most lavishly upholstered armchairs he'd sat in since he'd left the Shire all those years ago, blinked up at him. Dori, he thought the dwarf's name was. Dori, brother of Ori. Not the thief. The _other_ thief. That was apparently Nori, and he was out at present. Ori, though, was scrunched shamefully on his own chair on the other side of the small room, with the Ranger Tales still clutched semi-defiantly in his hands. He looked up as Bilbo glanced at him, and dipped his head with both shame and shy gratitude.

"It was no trouble," Bilbo found himself saying, reaching up to catch Dori's arm gently, holding it until the shakes seemed to subside somewhat. "Truly. I haven't had too many dwarven customers. Well. Any, really. At this point, if a dwarf wants to read my stock, I'm nearly happy to simply _let_ him." 

He smiled, rueful and warm, just to show he really did mean it, and Dori ... slumped, all at once, and pulled back to collapse down into his own chair. All his nervous energy, that had carried him through Bilbo's introduction and Ori's shamed explanation, rushing out of him at once.

"I'm so sorry," Dori repeated, looking suddenly unbearably tired. "We haven't ... Erebor hasn't been as good for us as we'd hoped, and we're somewhat short on gold at the moment. I'm sure Ori would not have ... That is, he's not normally like this, I assure you."

"... I'm sorry," Ori agreed, softly. His mittened fingers trailing softly over the leather cover of the manuscript, his head bowed. "I shouldn't have. I know. I ... I probably would have put it back? I just wanted to see."

And Bilbo ... Oh, Bilbo understood that. He did, he truly did. Bilbo, who remembered journeying into Bree to pester Rangers and traveling merchants for manuscripts and books when he was a tween. Bilbo, who remembered his mother's library, his father's study, who remembered boxes of books dumped outside Bag End by Sackville-Bagginses, the only treasures he had been allowed to keep without a fight. Bilbo, who remembered standing beside Gandalf in the library of Rivendell, trying desperately not to be rude to the elf in front of them, despite almost bursting with curiosity and eagerness. Bilbo, who remembered the bookseller's traveling case he'd acquired there, the start of a new life, and all that it had meant to him.

Bilbo, remembering all that, looked at the skinny, shaking figure of the dwarf who had wanted to read about Rangers, and thought that, under the circumstances, he understood the temptation for a little light thievery all too well.

"I know, Ori," he said softly. Waiting until the dwarf raised his head to look at him before he smiled, very gently. "I know you would have." He shook his head, chuckling a little bit. "I don't think you're really cut out for a thief's life. You're much too honest, and much too bad at lying." 

Not like Bilbo the Took, who had lied to Master Dwalin's face with casual ease, born of long practice attempting to convince Gandalf that he _hadn't_ run into trouble in Mirkwood, no sir, certainly not. Though, being perfectly fair, he rather thought Dwalin, much like Gandalf, had been going along with it more from pity than belief. There had been an odd expression in the guard dwarf's eyes as he looked at Ori (who had been gaping rather unhelpfully at Bilbo at the time), and Bilbo did wonder if Dwalin had accepted his hurried story more to spare the lad than anything else.

He shook himself, focusing back on the present to find Ori looking sheepishly at him, and Dori looking at Ori with an expression that was equal parts pain, sadness, and tired relief. There were stories there, Bilbo knew. Stories, perhaps, relating to brother Nori, and the reasons Dwalin thought Ori might be following in his footsteps ...

As if summoned by the thought, the silence of the small set of rooms was shattered by a door slamming open, and a fourth figure rushed into the room, past Dori who was already half on his feet, expression morphing into something angry and fearful, and moved instead straight to where Ori was sitting.

" _Ori_ ," the newcomer hissed, already practically on top of his brother before he noticed there were other people in the room. "Ori, in Mahal's name, I heard Dwalin tried to _arrest_ you, what were you _thinking_?!"

Ori opened his mouth to explain, Dori behind him drawing himself up as well (though to yell something entirely different, Bilbo suspected), but for his part Bilbo was too busy focusing on something else. Namely, the rather distinctive star-shaped design of the newcomer's braided hair, which Bilbo remembered _very clearly_ from the caravan into Dale from the Misty Mountains. Mostly, it must be said, because it belonged to a dwarf who had almost robbed him in Laketown, and only stopped (and been caught) because he was too stunned and dismayed that Bilbo carried only books to notice the hobbit creeping up behind him on silent feet.

"Nori ..." Ori was saying, quietly underneath his elder brother's "As though _you_ can talk!", but they looked around, all three of them, when Bilbo cleared his throat. Expression shifting to shamed (Dori), confused (Ori), and a slightly rueful alarm (Nori).

"So," Bilbo noted wryly, glancing sideways at Ori. "Your brother really _is_ a thief, then?" He chuckled, shaking his head as he looked to Dori. "Maybe you ought to steal a little something too, to complete the set? I have some nice teas you might enjoy."

They stared at him. First in confusion, then in comprehension, then in horror. And then, as one, Ori and Dori turned to stare at their brother, and raised desperate, questioning eyebrows.

Nori, for his part, just smiled faintly, looking down at Bilbo. "Baggins, isn't it?" he asked, and there was no shame in his voice, but there was no hostility, either. "The bookseller from Laketown. Did I thank you, I wonder? For not raising a hue and cry?"

Bilbo grinned, shaking his head. "No, you didn't," he noted, with rather too much humour to really count as reproving. "Although, in your defense, I think you were too busy arranging to be elsewhere rather quickly?"

Nori grinned, bright and lazy. "So I was," he agreed. 

And then he paused. Looking around, taking in Ori, looking shocked and worried and ashamed, and Dori, looking, well, much the same. Tallying up, maybe, what he had heard of events in the market place. Rumours of thieves and booksellers, and how Dwalin had been cheated of his prey.

"... Has _Ori_ thanked you?" the thief asked softly, stiff and careful and standing almost protectively in front of his brother. 

And Bilbo found himself smiling, softer, and much more genuinely.

"Yes, he has," he said softly. "And Dori. Repeatedly." He stopped, shook his head, letting his smile go a little crooked. "Though really, it wasn't that much trouble. And Ori isn't really much of a thief." He grinned. "Even less so than his brother."

Nori snorted, taking the professional slight on the chin. And then met Bilbo's gaze, held it and ... and bowed. Low and deep, with an odd expression in his eyes. "If this family may ever be of service to you," he said, echoing his elder brother perhaps unknowingly, "you need only send for any one of us, and we will come."

Bilbo blinked rapidly, somewhat shocked to find his eyes prickling gently, and bowed back as earnestly. 

But before he could open his mouth, to accept the gesture, or perhaps to repeat that it had been nothing, that repayment wasn't necessary, Ori spoke up behind them. Wincing a little, as three sets of eyes turned to stare at him, but resolute and with a rather charming note of triumph.

"Actually," the youngest brother said, "I think I might have an idea about that."

\--- 

Which was how, a week later, Bilbo Baggins, wandering bookseller and formerly of the Shire, ended up back at the marketplace of Dale, setting up his stall with Ori on one side, nattering cheerfully at no-one in particular while he laid out books and manuscripts and scrolls, and Dori on the other, clucking reprovingly at Bilbo's tea selection as he set up the camp stove.

It was how he ended up setting up a sign next to the stall in neatly-lettered Angerthas runes, announcing in terse Khuzdul (or so Ori earnestly assured him) that the stall offered Dwarven versions of Elvish and Westron scripts, translations of the outside world written in the secret tongue and designed specifically for dwarves to store their knowledge and their entertainment as it deserved to be stored, in this rebuilt city and this home for a people who had once been lost. Offering the selection of wares, texts of men and elves and stranger peoples, ready to be translated for anyone who wished to commission it.

That had been Ori's idea. Haltingly suggested in the rooms he shared with his brothers, offering Bilbo a means to stay in Dale that little longer, and perhaps a means to make a profit, too. Between Ori's Westron and Khuzdul, and Bilbo's Westron and rudimentary Sindarin, and with perhaps some small outlay for writing materials ... Well. It had seemed worth a try, hadn't it?

Bilbo took a moment, leaning on the sign as he looked back at the stall, watching Ori grin eagerly at his brother, and the hesitant, still rather worried smile Dori sent back. He took a moment, reflecting on books and money and caravans to the south, on services and friends and fate. Bilbo leaned beside them, and frowned thoughtfully for a moment.

And then he picked himself up, grinned determinedly and happily for the both of them, and moved to start setting up his new business.

The caravans would always been there if he needed them, after all. And Gandalf would find his way back north eventually. It would do no harm, maybe, to chance a few more months among the dwarves. Just to see. Just to try.

And just, he carefully didn't think, to see if that smile of Dori's might be induced to be a little less hesitant.


	2. The Toymaker

There was a dwarf already waiting for Bilbo as he trundled his traveling case down to the stall. Which wasn't as unusual as it ought to be, the past few weeks, especially since Bilbo had let slip that he'd sent an order for more stock down south with the last caravan. They didn't usually arrive before his first cup of tea, though.

And, really, Bilbo couldn't be responsible until after that. It just wasn't _civilised_ , to ask a hobbit to talk business before even his first cup of tea. A hobbit might make allowances on the road. In Dale, at his place of business, he really might not.

The dwarf didn't even budge as Bilbo lugged the case in behind him. Nor did he seem overly offended, just propping his chin in his hands as he leaned on the edge of the stall and smiling cheerily to himself as Bilbo puffed out a breath, straightening up from the case. His expression didn't change even when Bilbo moved to set up the stove and become civilised once again, save for a faint speculative edge to his smile. 

He was an odd sort, Bilbo thought privately, absently setting out the second cup (pre-tea might be too early to talk business, but it was certainly _not_ too early to behave properly towards a guest, however uninvited). The dwarf wore an open smile beneath his furry hat, and didn't seem at all disturbed to be ignored, watching Bilbo's hands move over the tea set with placid curiosity.

It might have been alarming, really. Except that it was rather too early for _that_ , too.

"Cream?" he asked his impromptu guest, raising an eyebrow and holding out the jug in one hand, the cup in the other. "There's sugar, too, but I try to save that for Ori. Lad has a sweet tooth."

The dwarf raised an eyebrow, his smile morphing into a full grin, and shook his head. "Touch o' cream'll do me, lad," he said, straightening up and leaning over to accept his cup. "Thanks for that. Been a long mornin'."

Bilbo raised his own eyebrows, looking slowly around the almost deserted marketplace, with only the trundle of early morning carts and cases as people set up shop. "Has it?" he asked, with a small smile as he poured cream into his own tea. "All credit to you then, master dwarf. You're up earlier than I, it seems, and more cheerful with it too."

His guest laughed, bright and casual and easy, and Bilbo smiled into his tea. "Not much for mornings, are you?" the dwarf asked, cheerily. "I've a brother much the same. Mind you, he spends most evenings working the kitchens, so I expect it evens out."

"I'm sure it does," Bilbo agreed, appreciating the casual acceptance. He polished off his first cup in a gulp or two, and set up for the second to savour. He might have skipped some of the meals of the Shire, since leaving, but tea was another matter entirely. "You'll forgive my rudeness, master dwarf. I'm not much good until the first cup." He smiled, shook his head. "So then. What can I do for you?"

The smile slipped a little, not so much vanishing as fading slightly, and his guest put his cup gently down on the still-bare boards of the stall. Reaching up to rub his mouth thoughtfully, the dwarf examined Bilbo for a moment. Bilbo, for his part, looked placidly back, and decided it was too early to be visibly alarmed by anything just yet.

"... Bofur son of Sviur, at your service," the dwarf said at last, holding out an arm and shaking Bilbo's hand rather vigorously. "I'd heard you do translations, these days? To Khuzdul?"

Bilbo blinked, not so much at the request as at the oddly nervous tone of it, but nodded, gesturing with the hand not currently caught in the dwarf's grasp towards their new sign.

"Yes, we offer translations," he said, with perhaps some pride. "Not me personally, you understand. Ori handles the Khuzdul end of things. He'll be along in a few hours or so, commissions tend to keep him up nights." More than could be wished, really, but Ori seemed more excited and proud than anything, and neither Dori nor Nori had complained. "But we offer a few services in that vein these days. Books to sell, books to loan. Translations commissioned. The past week or so, we've been offering a small notice service, for men and dwarves both." He nodded gently towards the new tack board hanging from one side of the stall. "We handle a few more esoteric requests, too, so long as they're in a lingual vein and not too time-consuming."

Bofur blinked slowly, his grin creeping back a little. Bilbo was rapidly getting the impression that that smile was more than a little irrepressible. He rather liked it, actually.

"Do a lot, don't you," the dwarf murmured softly, grinning faintly down at Bilbo. "I seem to remember the last time I was down this end of the market, you were pretty much just a bookseller?"

Bilbo smiled ruefully. "Yes," he agreed. "But that wasn't really serving me very well. When I acquired a partner, things ... Well. They picked up pace, rather."

They'd picked up pace a _lot_ , if Bilbo was honest. Not necessarily the commissions themselves, they were still fairly few and far between. But with the offer of Khuzdul and proper respect for their language and culture, the dwarves had gotten curious. In the first week, after seeing more than a few browse the stock, Bilbo had set up a system where, for a small fee, people could take away books for a time and read them before deciding if they wanted a more permanent translation done. It had become rather the cornerstone of the business, and though many of their customers made noises about commissions, of course, just want to see what's on offer, master hobbit, master scribe, yes sir, it was becoming apparent that the stall made as much money, and as reliable an income, purely from lending.

With that in mind, he and Ori had restructured things a little, focusing on making master copies of popular texts, and offering smaller translation jobs and other services on the side. Aside from stock and equipment outlay, most of Bilbo's daily income came from lending, with Ori taking most of the gold from the translations, notices, and the four or five commissions they'd gotten (which Dori had protested, a little, on the grounds that it was Bilbo's stall and Bilbo their family was indebted to, but really it was only fair when Ori did most of the work, and they needed gold rather more than Bilbo did. Which none of them ever _acknowledged_ , as such, but Bilbo had been firm, and Dori had not protested as strongly as he otherwise might have). 

Which meant, really, that in the past six weeks or so, Bilbo had gone from a bookseller to what was essentially the head librarian of a charging library that did translations on the side. Erestor, had he seen him now, would have somewhere between horrified and intrigued, Bilbo thought. It tickled him, a little, to think of the elven librarian so.

"Aye, I can see that," Bofur said softly, pulling Bilbo rather abruptly back out of his musings, smiling gently down at him. "And it's doing you good, I think? You're looking a mite more cheerful than when last I saw you, perched on your stool with your shoulders hanging from your ears?" 

Bilbo blinked, then flushed, ducking his head. Bofur laughed at him a little. It wasn't really mocking, though, more sympathetic, and Bilbo found he didn't mind that so much at all.

However ...

"That's ... that's as may be," he managed, only barely stuttering. "Master Bofur, grateful as I am for your well wishes ... Ah. Did you actually have a request, sir? Only I should probably set up soon ...?"

Bofur grimaced, a little, and straightened up automatically. He pulled the hat off his head, fiddling it between his hands for a moment. Bilbo blinked, a little, wondering if he shouldn't be alarmed at this point. Surely whatever it was couldn't be _that_ onerous?

"You said other services?" Bofur opened, squinting cautiously at Bilbo's nod. "In a translation vein. Ah. So. You wouldn't mind a more ... a more _spoken_ sort of translating? And, maybe a more ... continuous, sort of thing?"

Bilbo stared at him. Really, at this point, there wasn't much else to do. After a moment, Bofur sighed, and rested the hat and his hands on the stall.

"It's my cousin, you see," he said, watching how own fingers fret softly in the fur around the brim, carefully not looking up. "Bifur. He's a toymaker by trade, you know. A good one. Had a stall up the top end of the market. Dale's got a few more kids than Erebor does, at least for right now." A pause, a soft smile. "Always had a talent. Made the most wonderful little things. You know?"

He looked up then, a little challengingly, and Bilbo simply nodded. "I'm sure they're marvelous," he assured. Not even placatingly. He had seen dwarven craftsmanship. He had no doubts.

Bofur seemed to take some encouragement from that, looking back down at his hands with more of his smile than before. "Aye, well. He's good, is Bifur. But he has ... he has a small problem." He shook his head, his expression darkening. Not a simple fading of his smile. Something older, a flash of something genuinely fearsome on that cheerful face. "We had some problems on the route to Erebor. Orcs, in the Misty Mountains."

Bilbo winced, rather visibly, and the dwarf looked ruefully at him. Bilbo shrugged one shoulder uneasily, a hand instinctively coming up to touch his waistcoat pocket, nodding softly. He understood that much. Goblins, in his case. Goblins and ... whatever that creature had been. Had it not be for Gandalf ... well. Had it not been for Gandalf, Dale would be poorer by one bookseller, wouldn't it?

"Your cousin got hurt?" Bilbo asked, softly. Seeing a touch of sympathy in Bofur's face, and a touch of that darker thing too.

"Aye," the dwarf said, grimly. "He took an axe to the head." He smiled, a little, at Bilbo's startled flinch. "He's alright, now. Mostly. More or less. But he has a small problem with Westron. And, well. That's been causing some problems, the past few weeks. Problems ... I was hoping you maybe might be able to help with?"

And really, Bilbo thought, watching Bofur's fingers worrying at his hat, what could one say to that? 

\---

Ori arrived around ten, rather later than usual, with an armful of leather cases for the loose-leaf manuscripts. Ordinarily, Dori would have been behind him, carrying the heftier tomes (Dori was surprisingly powerful, for such a fussy dwarf). Today, however, it was the middle brother, Nori, that was following Ori up the incline from the river, complaining mightily all the way from the looks of things.

Which was somewhat unfortunate, really, since for the past two minutes Bilbo had been watching Bofur make his way _down_ the incline from the Ereborean gate, waving cheerily and followed by two dwarves. The first of which presumably being his cousin, and the second of which ...

Well. It probably wouldn't end _too_ badly, right? Dwalin couldn't arrest Nori just for carrying some books, could he?

Bilbo sighed, and went to put the kettle on. One of Dori's stronger blends, he thought. He had a suspicion they were going to need it.

The brothers reached him first, not having had to traverse most of the market. Bilbo didn't _audibly_ sigh in relief as Ori bustled in behind him, nattering cheerfully, but Nori caught the slump of his shoulders regardless.

"Something the matter, Master Lightfoot?" the thief asked, leaning insouciantly on the stall with the stack of books beside him. The bloody dwarf had been calling him that since they'd been reacquainted, supposedly in honour of silent feet in Laketown. It was mildly annoying, so it was. 

Which was possibly why Bilbo took rather more pleasure than he ought in nodding up-market.

"We've got guests incoming," he said, and watched Nori's eyes widen in instinctive alarm at the sight of Dwalin. And then narrow, with something that was either anticipation or malice, Bilbo wasn't sure which, and yes, oh yes, he was going to need a _strong_ cup of tea, wasn't he?

"So I see," Nori murmured, rolling lightly to his feet. Ori, having caught on and followed their gazes, squeaked lightly in alarm, and Bilbo shook his head.

"Behave, both of you," he admonished, reaching out to tug lightly on Nori's beard and holding up a cup in lieu of whatever it was Nori was holding behind his back. "They're coming to see us on another matter entirely, and it's not like you can be arrested for carrying your brother's books. So have some tea, be polite, and try not to taunt him too much." He sighed. "Please?"

Nori blinked at him for a second, and then chuckled, taking the tea and smiling faintly into its depths. "Whatever you say, Master Baggins," he murmured, and Bilbo wasn't quite sure if the switch in names was acquiescence or a small glimmer of temper. There were times dwarves were worse than hobbits for that.

Not that he had time to decide, though. Not when a cheerful voice cut across anything Bilbo might have thought to say, and a be-hatted figure bumped amiably against the stall counter.

"Mr Baggins!" Bofur greeted, grinning with a mix of relief and what Bilbo was rapidly coming to realise was just his semi-permanent cheer. "Weren't waiting too long, were you?"

"Not at all, Master Bofur." Bilbo bowed across at him, ignoring how both Ori and Nori were staring unabashedly at the other dwarf. And then at the other two behind him, though what Nori directed at Dwalin couldn't really be called a _stare_. "Master Dwalin," Bilbo nodded, a little desperately. "And this will be Master Bifur, yes?"

"Aye," Bofur answered, though his cousin (who really did have an axe in his skull - being told about it didn't really prepare one for the reality) grumbled something in grudging Khuzdul behind him. At least, Bilbo thought it sounded grudging. Khuzdul was difficult like that.

"Pleased to meet you," Bilbo said anyway, holding out his hand across the counter to the new dwarf. "Welcome to our end of the market, Master Bifur."

Bifur stared down at him for a second, squinting at his hand suspiciously, to the extent that Bilbo was considering being offended. Then, with a blink almost of surprise when Bilbo didn't withdraw it, the dwarf reached down and almost delicately took his hand, murmuring something in Khuzdul with a nod of his head before withdrawing. Bofur, beside him, grinned unabashedly.

"He says pleased to meet you too, Mr Baggins," the miner grinned, looking rather pleased with himself. Almost too pleased, Bilbo would have thought, but Bifur was smiling at him, almost shyly, and he couldn't find it in himself to be annoyed.

"Aye, well," Dwalin rumbled abruptly, glancing somewhat uneasily between Nori, on one side of Bilbo, and Bifur on the other. "Try to stay that way this time, won't you? Master Baggins isn't much for fights. Especially not with men."

Bilbo stiffened a little, drawing himself up before remembering that no, he wasn't supposed to mention the elvish blade under the counter, Gandalf had advised him strongly on that. And besides. More or less every other dwarf there got an answer in before him.

"Fights?" Ori murmured, instinctively leaning across his books to protect them. "What do you mean fights? Bilbo, what's going on?"

"That's not my cousin's fault!" Bofur opened hotly, glaring at Dwalin around Bifur. "They think his injury makes him stupid, insult him to his face, what's he _supposed_ to do, eh?"

Bifur, for his part, was curling forward ashamedly, his gaze downcast. Bilbo felt something twist in his chest, and had opened his mouth to explain, on hand on Ori's arm to calm him, when Nori decided, _naturally_ , that this was a perfect moment to step in and antagonise people further. For the love of _Eru_.

"You sound almost concerned, Master Dwalin," the thief drawled lightly, leaning on one elbow beside Bilbo and looking very smug about it. "Taken a shine to our hobbit, have you?"

Dwalin glared at him. His hands were braced on the haft of his hammer, going white knuckled for a moment, but that was all, thank Mahal. (Bilbo blinked a little at the thought. He needed to stop hanging around with dwarves). 

Then Dwalin's eyes narrowed, a gimlet-eyed expression that Bilbo recognised primarily from Nori himself, and he revised that opinion. Hammers were significantly easier to deal with that whatever that expression usually boded ...

"I've nothing against Master Baggins," the guardsdwarf said calmly, staring hard-eyed at Nori. "He's done a good job keeping your brother out of trouble, to start with. I'm sure Dori's been grateful to him."

Nori's expression went completely, utterly blank, Ori hunching over with a slight gasp beside Bilbo, and ... and _no_. Just no. That was most certainly _not_ appropriate.

" _Thank you_ , Master Dwalin," Bilbo snapped, with more frost in his tone than he'd had in a long, long time. (Not since Bag End closed its doors to him, not since Lobellia's sweet-sounding opinion that he'd be more at home in Tuckborough anyway, what with his mother, don't you think? Not since then, but Bilbo wasn't thinking about that, he needed to keep hold of his temper). "In the first place, Ori is perfectly capable of making his own decisions. In the second, I think Nori is as concerned about his brother as anyone. And in the third, I owe my friends considerably better than to try and usurp their positions in their family, and I will thank you not to suggest otherwise!"

He glared at Dwalin, fists knotting furiously, almost distantly surprised by the force of anger in his own tone ("Poor dear, he's more Took than Baggins, isn't he?"). Trying not to think too hard about the stunned look Ori was giving him, or the way the blank look in Nori's face had faltered around something else entirely. Or, for that matter, about the way Bofur and Bifur, who were _complete strangers_ uncomfortably present for this little family drama that was taking place in the _street_ , were glancing uneasily at both each other and at him. No. He kept his icy expression fixed on Dwalin. 

Otherwise, he was half-sure he'd have lost his composure entirely and bolted behind the stall.

"... My apologies, Master Baggins," Dwalin said at last, stiffly and carefully. With a crinkle around his eyes that looked like genuine remorse, and a careful nod in Ori's direction too. And then, much, _much_ more stiffly, also in Nori's. "You're quite right. That was ... inappropriate of me."

He didn't laugh when Bilbo gaped at him. Which was fortunate, really, all things considered. He didn't do anything beyond wait, calmly and remorsefully, for Bilbo to stop shaking with fury and remember his manners enough to accept the apology.

Which took rather longer than Bilbo expected, and was perhaps all the more worrying for that.

"... Well," Bofur murmured, breaking the tableau, his smile odd and distant as he stared at Bilbo. "I think we may have found the right helper for you after all, cousin of mine." He grinned, soft and cheerful and not at all explicable, while Bifur flashed his hands in a set of gestures that tugged at Bilbo's memory, and Dwalin harumphed in sudden gruff embarrassment.

"... He's not bad at all," Nori murmured, low and a little strange himself, watching Bilbo with eyes that were suddenly a lot sharper and more considering than usual. Bilbo, feeling a flush climbing steadily up his neck, suddenly found the top layer of books on the stall extremely fascinating indeed.

Then Nori shook himself, fixed back on his vague, insouciant smirk, and looked up at the two newcomers. "Though I will say, as strange and alarming as it is for me to agree with Master Dwalin over here ..." He paused, slow and dangerous, while Dwalin actually had the nerve to smirk a little bit, and the flush crept up over Bilbo's ears. "I promise you. Should any harm come to Master Baggins because of you, it will not be the guards you'll be answering to."

Eru preserve him, Bilbo thought faintly. Or rather, no, Eru open the ground _right now_ and swallow him. That would be nice. Except that dwarves were miners, weren't they, that probably wouldn't work either ...

Bifur answered, in a short, succinct burst of Khuzdul. He was smiling faintly, Bilbo saw when he looked up, eyes crinkling in an expression that Bilbo thought was very kind indeed.

"He says he'll do everything in his power to see that doesn't happen," Ori murmured beside him, a quick and rather warm translation, and Bilbo saw the scribe was smiling back up at Bifur. "He's thankful that you've agreed to help him, and hopes ... hopes not to be too much of a bother."

"Aye," Bofur said, smiling warmly at them. "We'll move the stall down here tomorrow. He just needs the odd word here or there, if the menfolk start getting annoyed that he can't answer them. He only ended up fighting them when they ... when they said things they shouldn't have, thinking he couldn't understand them." He grimaced a little, that flash of darkness creeping back over his features. "Me and Bombur tried, but with the reopening of the mines under Erebor, and with more people in the city itself, neither of us have the time we thought we'd have."

Bifur turned to his cousin, hands flashing in a quick series of gestures, his expression soft and forgiving and slightly shamed, and Bilbo shouldn't have said anything, shouldn't have interrupted, but the memory snapped abruptly into place, and he realised what he was looking at.

"Ranger sign!" he said, and almost flinched as all five of them turned to look at him. "Oh, oh I'm sorry, it's just that I just realised." He smiled a little sheepishly up at Bifur. "Those gestures ... they're not quite Ranger sign, because if they were you'd just have said that the pine trees are not on fire, and that doesn't make very much sense. But. Um. It's a sign language, isn't it? Those ...?" He flicked his hands in a vague approximation of the sign the dwarf had just made, and Bifur, shockingly, _beamed_ at him.

"Iglishmêk," Dwalin cut in, his eyebrows raised at Bilbo in something that might have been respect. "Not the Ereborean variant. Broadbeam? Blue Mountains?"

"Aye," Bofur agreed, slanting a curious look over at the guard, but his cousin was too busy still staring at Bilbo. Bifur frowned thoughtfully down at him and then, very slowly, made two gestures that Bilbo watched eagerly. Bofur glanced between them, and smiled. "My cousin says: welcome, friend."

Bilbo looked down, watching the twitch of the dwarf's hands for a few more seconds, and then looked back up, his own smile wide and bright, and repeated the sign with a flush of pride.

"Welcome indeed, Master Dwarf," he laughed, grinning up at them. "And I think we'll be able to work together just fine, don't you?"

Well, if two thieves could steal his friendship and make the difference between Bilbo staying and leaving, a toymaker with an axe in his head was hardly going to be a strain, was he?

Say what you like about Dale, Erebor and dwarves, Bilbo thought with a grin, but they certainly weren't boring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't sure what patronymic to give Bofur, but Wikipedia tells me that Tolkien took most of the dwarf names in the Hobbit from the Norse [Dvergatal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_dwarves#Dvergatal:_the_list_of_the_Dvergar) and/or Poetic Edda, which I then browsed through until I found a name ending in roughly the right sound. Hence, Bofur son of Sviur. *grins sheepishly*


	3. Fighting Words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um. This one was somewhat hurried, and escaped from me a bit. Apologies in advance. Also, WARNINGS for racial and cultural tension and violence in this chapter, yes?

In one way, depending on how you looked at it, Bifur's presence did, in fact, lead them into a fight. But in another, Bilbo supposed, it truly wasn't Bifur's fault, and probably would have happened eventually anyway, with or without him. His presence simply hastened matters to their natural conclusion. 

They should have expected it, Ori and he. They really ought to have known. But they hadn't, until a toymaker set his stall up alongside theirs, and brought the undercurrents up into the light.

For the first week or so of their partnership, though, none of them, not one of the three, had given one thought to future trouble. For the first week, after that morning when Bofur and a cheerfully rotund dwarf by the name of Bombur had helped their cousin set up shop in the lower market, with a cheerful flash of Bilbo's fingers and a shy smile from Ori to greet them, they had been focusing on something else entirely.

They had, Bilbo thought a little ruefully, been focused entirely on tea, and toys, and books, and hesitant conversations, and the delight of a new language (for while Ori had been raised with Iglishmêk, the same as any dwarf, he'd been raised with the Ereborean variant, and the differences in dialect cheerfully fascinated him as much as Bilbo, who couldn't help but compare what he was learning back to Ranger Sign). They had been focusing on exchanging stories, the routes they had taken to Erebor, the families they came from, the jobs they'd had and the lives they'd lived before the immigration to the Lonely Mountain.

And they had, or Bilbo had at least, also been focusing on the children. Because for all Bifur's shamed talk of fights, scaring people away because of his injury and his rages against the taunting of men, it seemed a significant portion of the children of Dale and Erebor were too enchanted by his toys, or perhaps too ghoulishly delighted by the challenge, to really allow themselves to be denied. They crept up to the stall, slowly at first, in defiance perhaps of parents, and then more boldly, as the week went on, dragging mothers and fathers or older children along with them, oohing and giggling at the clever little things Bifur showed them, carved in wood and lead and painted bright colours, clever and simple by turns. Because axe or not, able to speak or not, Bifur's craft spoke for itself, and he had a love of children that showed clear in every carved line of wood.

And Bilbo, who had been so long away from the Shire, so long away from the mad dash of cousins and second cousins and whatever random fauntling decided to run past his door and steal jam tarts off his kitchen window just for the fun of it ... Bilbo, he admitted softly to himself, had been utterly lost. Enchanted, and pained, and more than a touch homesick, and just generally ridiculously distracted by the whole thing. Which wasn't an excuse, as such, just ... an explanation. Just a reason, he thought, for why he might have been so blind.

Ori saved him, a little. And Bifur too. The both of them, once they recognised the melancholy under his delight, once they recognised the cause of his distraction. They didn't ask him for an explanation (which was fortunate, because Bilbo wasn't sure he could explain the loss to anyone save Gandalf, who had, in part, already known). Perhaps they didn't really need one, having left behind distant homes themselves to build new lives in Erebor. But they understood the crookedness of his smile as he listened to children laughing, and took pains to draw him away from it. With books and business, with customers and requests for help, with tea and Iglishmêk, with talks of stories they could _write_ as well as translate. With, when all else failed, just a touch on the arm and a shy, sympathetic smile (Ori), or a soft rumble in a language Bilbo didn't understand, and didn't really need to (Bifur).

All of which were riches beyond measure, to a hobbit, offerings greater than all the gold in Erebor and all the gems in the dwarven king's treasury. All of which meant more to Bilbo than almost any other treasure you might care to name.

Which was why, perhaps, he should have expected they'd come with a price, in this distant land where the stone was hard beneath bare feet, and hobbits were rare and strange to those around them.

It wasn't with men, you see. The fight that Bifur's presence started. It wasn't with the cruel taunts that Bifur, shoulder to shoulder with friends and bolstered by the delight of children, now found that little easier to bear. It wasn't the men of Dale, fearing a violent dwarf in their midst.

It was the dwarves of Erebor. Fearing, perhaps, someone much, much smaller, and a loss much, much greater.

A hobbit bookseller was one thing. A hobbit bookseller with a dwarven translator, dealing now in dwarvish texts, that was slightly more alarming, but still perfectly fine. 

But then add a dwarf who could only speak Khuzdul. Then add a dwarf who was seen speaking to said hobbit almost exclusively in that language. Then add a dwarf who, with the help of the previous dwarven translator, had been teaching said hobbit at least one dwarven language, in the form of Iglishmêk.

And then go back. Add in some other facts. Such as the fact that the first dwarf, the translator, was the brother of a thief. That he was rumoured to be a thief himself. That he came from a family of criminals, and perhaps did not, therefore, have the respect for dwarven law and culture that he should have.

Add in that the bookseller had been struggling, until he started dealing in Khuzdul. Add in that the books he was selling, now, were still the books of men, the books of elves, second-hand stories wrapped in a stolen tongue to make gold from dwarves.

Add in theft, and secret tongues, and freshly rebuilt kingdoms. Add in years of exile, add in pain and secrecy and poverty, only recently fought back. Add in learning the tongues of men to do business, because a home in which to speak Khuzdul had been stolen from them. Add in birthrights denied and won back, add in fear and loss and letters written in exile.

Add in all of that. And then stand in a marketplace, and watch a hobbit steal it all away, with a soft smile and a sly tongue, and the help of two dwarves who should have _known better_.

Yes, oh yes. They should have expected trouble. Bilbo realised that later, knew that, with a sick, queasy feeling in his stomach that he hadn't felt since he stood at the gate of Bag End, and realised that his home was no longer his. Seeing Ori's face as they picked up the pieces of a shattered sign. Bifur's, as he tried to help them. Dori's, as he stood with bruised knuckles in an empty circle, all the pained knowledge in the world in his eyes.

It started, as these things always do, with a word. With a taunt, with a curse, with an invective flung bitterly home. As every fight Bilbo had ever fought and finished had started, this one started with a word.

It also started in Khuzdul, which was why it had taken him a few minutes to figure it out.

The dwarves were miners, mostly, and warriors. Ereborean, to a dwarf, the children of the returning generation. Scholars, some of them, from the great libraries that were being rebuilt deep inside Erebor itself. A cluster that had ebbed and flowed, over the course of the past few days, a fragment of which had always been watching them, though none of them except Nori had realised it. 

Nori hadn't been there the day it started. Bilbo wasn't sure yet if that was a good thing or not. On the one hand, Nori might have seen it coming sooner. On the other, Nori, of all of them, really couldn't have afforded the fallout. Neither could Bifur, really, but his conflict was with men, whereas Ori and Bilbo had a history with dwarves that made the market of Dale more inclined to blame them than him, this once.

The first Bilbo had noticed of it was the moment Ori, who had been staring absently across the street, nibbling on the end of his quill while he pondered word choices, stiffened abruptly on his stool. Bilbo had glanced up, noted the group across from them, but hadn't seen anything particularly alarming, so he'd gone back to haggling cheerfully with one of their best customers over how many days per size of book he could have. He could hear catcalls across the street, but they didn't actually mean anything to him, so he ignored them.

But then Ori didn't unbend. The scribe hunched over on his stool, shoulders stiff and tight, and his hands curling into fists around his quill. Bilbo glanced over at him repeatedly, looking back over at the six dwarves across the way more closely now. 

Which was why he saw the shortest of them, an angry looking fellow with a beard like a flow of red gold, turned his leer away from Ori and over to Bilbo himself, and called something very loud and presumably very unflattering across at him. He didn't recognise the word itself, just the tone, hard and angry and derisive, enough to know that whatever he'd just been called, he wouldn't enjoy a translation.

The quill snapped quietly in Ori's hand. One stall over, Bifur paused in his carving, the knife going still in his hand.

And behind Bilbo, with exquisite care, Dori put the teapot down. 

"... Ori?" Bilbo asked, very carefully. Nudging his friend's shoulder gently. "Is everything alright?"

Ori ducked his head into his chest. In fury, not embarrassment, and Bilbo felt a quick flush of worry. Ori didn't generally _do_ anger. He was one of the most even-tempered dwarves -one of the most even-tempered _anything_ \- that Bilbo'd ever met. To make Ori angry, they must have said something rather impressive indeed.

Said, and kept saying, Bilbo noted absently. A couple of other voices had taken up the call, and though the tone remained sneering, there was an ugly undercurrent of genuine hate in there. Bilbo had traveled a fair bit since leaving Bag End. He'd heard that tone before. Usually in the towns of men, the elves had favoured him well enough for his friendship with Gandalf. He hadn't yet heard it among dwarves. 

Until now, it seemed. Even if, just then, he hadn't quite known the reason yet.

"Ignore it," he said softly, reaching down to gently pull the broken shards of quill out of Ori's hand. "Ori. Whatever it is, it's fine. Just ignore it unless they start threatening something more solid, alright?"

Ori didn't answer, just hunched a little bit further in his seat. It was Dori, behind them, who spoke up. Calm and careful, but with something humming angrily beneath it.

"Ordinarily, I would agree with you, Bilbo," the elder dwarf said softly, moving absently to the side of the stall and the gate out. "However, in this one instance ... I think Ori might have a point." 

He paused, hand resting gently on the end of the stall, staring directly across at their challengers. His expression was still placid and calm, but the way he was standing, the silent warning of it, couldn't be read as anything but a challenge.

And it seemed the other dwarves were in just the right mood to answer it.

It all happened rather quickly, after that. Just a rush of still moments, it seemed to Bilbo. Bifur stood up from his stall beside them. Ori gathered one of the heavier, wood-bound tomes into his hands. Dori raised his chin, glaring challenge. Bilbo silently put his hands on the blade beneath the boards.

The first dwarf, the red-gold challenger, looked right at him, curled his lip, and spat something that actually snapped Ori back in shock, a blank, quivering confusion.

Dori, with perfect calm, stepped out from the stall and walked across the street to stand before six dwarves. He said something, in soft, perfectly polite Khuzdul. Possibly an admonishment, possibly something stronger, Bilbo couldn't tell when the tone was that icily calm. 

In response, three of the six muscled in close around Dori. And one of them, his anger twisting his features into something ugly, spat right in Dori's face.

And then Dori ... moved. Like a dam breaking, Bilbo thought, a breathless moment of potential, of gravity waiting to happen, and then his fist plunged into the dwarf's chest with enough force to knock him and two more behind him four feet backwards into a heap on the ground.

Things got ... rather confusing, after that. Although Bilbo did remember wincing badly at the crack of a spine as Ori bludgeoned someone about the head with his book. For Eru's sake, lad, wood-bound books need more care than _that_. And he was almost positive he'd bitten someone, although he wasn't quite sure who, or exactly _where_ (there was fur in his teeth, afterwards, but half of them were wearing fur over approximately half their bodies, that wasn't exactly enlightening). And he wasn't sure, but he thought he'd seen someone take a swing at Dori's unprotected back, and been met by a long pole, a stall upright, he thought, in the hands of a thoroughly angry Bifur. Who was, as Dwalin had hinted, rather terrifying in a temper, let him tell you. 

Bilbo's own weapon was still hidden under the counter where he'd left it, some instinct telling him to forego it, nine angry dwarves or no. A few minutes later, when the guards showed up, that turned out to be rather fortunate.

And they did show up. Either almost immediately or an hour later, it was sort of hard to tell. The fight couldn't possibly have been more than a few minutes long, but it felt, as most fights do, like hours. But it ended, right enough, when Dwalin son of Fundin waded into the mix, picked the red-gold dwarf up bodily, caught Dori's hand on the downswing (with a wince, mind), and bellowed loud enough for a halt that Bilbo briefly wondered if the mountain were falling on them.

Not the mountain, no. Though with another six dwarves, these ones all armed and armoured for duty, possibly it amounted to much the same.

"What in the name of _Mahal_ is going on here!?!"

\---

It was one of the most surreal moments of Nori's life, Bilbo thought later. Walking into a jail, on purpose, of his own free will, to get _someone else_ out. To get _Dori_ out. _Legitimately_. Nori hadn't looked all that alarmed at the time, with that fixed, casual smile on his face and that swagger in his step, but there were a couple of moments where he and Dwalin looked at each other, and it was difficult to say who was more wrong-footed about the whole situation.

At any other time, in any other situation, possibly that might have been funny.

Bofur, on the other hand, came to collect Bifur with all the weariness of long practice. Bilbo winced a little at the sight of him, of his crumpled, pained expression. It wasn't Bifur's fault, after all. This time, it wasn't Bifur's fault.

It was Bilbo's. He wasn't completely sure how, yet, didn't know the details of the dwarves' grudge, but he knew it had been pointed primarily at him, not his companions.

Though, to be perfectly fair, the six (now rather battered) aggressors seemed perfectly happy to fill people in. Well, to fill other dwarves in, anyway, clustered in with Bilbo and his friends in the guard barracks under the Ereborean gate, yelling loudly and vociferously in Khuzdul and pointing angry fingers at Dori, at Ori, at Dwalin, and, most especially, at Bilbo.

It wasn't very enlightening for Bilbo personally, but he gathered Dwalin was getting an education. And, from the looks of things, a headache.

"They called Bilbo a thief!" Ori's voice climbed out of the mix, in _Westron_ , thank Eru, cresting in such uncharacteristic fury that the guards, at least, fell silent. "Dwalin, he called him a ..." Ori cut off, glanced at Bilbo. Crumpled, a little, expression tightening, and stumbled more hesitantly through the next word. "A ... a _carrion-eater_."

That wasn't quite the word, Bilbo thought, from the furrow of confusion on Dwalin's face. But the sign Bifur flashed, the unconscious Iglishmêk echo, said _orc_ , and that carried enough of the implication forward to be explicable. 

And sickening, Bilbo thought, with a lurch of bewildered horror. Also that.

Dwalin, having caught the sign too, lowered his brows thunderously. " _What_?" he growled, turning a downright vicious look on the ringleader. More quietly, unobtrusively, Nori straightened behind him, that blank expression flickering back over his features. Dori just ground his heels into the floor, as though settling for another fight.

The red-bearded dwarf snarled back at them, gesturing emphatically as he spat a low stream of Khuzdul. It was a good language to rant in, Bilbo thought absently. Lots of guttural sounds, climbing from low, rumbling venom to roaring hate and down again. The substance of the rant was still obscure, but the sentiment, at least, was perfectly clear.

Dori launched back first, a quiet, clipped snarl of words, low and savage. Bofur waded in, bewildered and upset, his back to his cousin as though protecting him. Some of the ire _was_ being pointed at Bifur, Bilbo saw. Ori, Bifur. Him. He ought to have figured it out then, really, but he was still slightly dizzy from the fight, and slightly deaf from all the shouting, and honestly, he couldn't be held accountable, he really couldn't.

"Oh, for Mahal's sake," Ori spat, his voice climbing out of the stew once again. The lad mightn't be able to lie worth a damn, and was as shy as you please, but apparently call his friend a vulture and he got over that right quick. "He _doesn't speak Khuzdul_!"

Silence fell, sudden and startled. Whether at the vehemence, the sudden reemergence of Westron, or just the fact that it was _Ori_ doing the shouting, Bilbo wasn't sure, but it was sudden and thick enough that his own voice, small and startled, sounded much too loud inside it.

"Oh," he said, blankly. "Is _that_ what this is about?"

The Ereboreans glared at him, angry and vicious. "Do not tell me that you didn't know," Red-Beard snapped, taking a step towards him. Stopping, very quickly, when Dori shifted smoothly into his path. He remembered Dori, Bilbo thought. He probably still had a dent in his chest armour to remind him. 

Bilbo, for his part, just stared up at him. "No," he said, very slowly. "How would I know? Nobody's said anything to me in a language I actually _understand_ yet." Temper, he thought distantly. For some reason, violence tended to do that to him. For a while, anyway. But he'd already made a note to collapse shaking later.

"Don't _lie_ ," the dwarf spat, sidestepping Dori, or trying to. "The Broadbeam has been teaching it to you for the past week!"

Bilbo stared at him, eyebrows creasing in confusion, until Bofur popped his head over Dori's shoulder. "That'll be Bifur, lad," the miner noted gently, with a genial nod in the red-beard's direction. Oddly, it caused the Ereborean to twitch more nervously than Dori had. "Blue Mountain dialect, remember?"

Bilbo blinked, but nodded. "Right," he said, smiling crookedly at the dwarf. "Sorry, I'm not all there at the moment." He paused, slanting a look back at Red-Beard. "Wait. You think _Bifur_ is teaching me Khuzdul? Why would he do that?"

"Aye," Bofur added, slow and thoughtful. "I'm wondering that myself. It's an interesting accusation to make of a dwarf, right enough."

The Ereborean shuffled worriedly. "That's not ..." he started, glancing around at his compatriots for help. "I mean. Not on _purpose_ , as such. Just ... he's always speaking it around the halfling. Nothing else. And we've seen him teaching the creature Iglishmêk ..."

Bofur smiled at him. It was not a nice smile. _At all_.

"Aye, well, he would be," the miner said, slow and cheerful, and Dori started cautiously edging back out of the direct line between them. "Seeing as how my cousin can't speak Westron anymore. Or, in fact, much of anything besides Khuzdul, and to be honest maybe not as much of that as he used to either." He grinned, tight and cold. "An orc axe to the head will do that to you, you know."

Dwalin shifted uneasily. Belatedly, Bilbo thought to wonder if any of those fights Bifur had gotten into had ever involved Dwalin himself. And how that had gone between them.

"He's been teaching me Iglishmêk _because_ I can't speak Khuzdul," he cut in, because this probably wasn't going to go anywhere good unless someone toned things down rather quickly. "So that I can handle men for him if Ori isn't there, or is busy." And just for the pleasure of it, and to make the homesickness fade a little for them both, but he wasn't giving this dwarf that. He didn't _deserve_ that. "Menfolk take it amiss if a dwarf can't speak to them in their own tongue, so myself and Ori cover for him." His voice hardened, a little, on a question he'd been wanting to ask for some time. "I'm not sure why no dwarves up at his end of the market were able to help him, but it didn't seem too much trouble for us. We've been happy to help, Ori and I."

Bofur's expression had darkened again, something tired and pained and angry, so the Ereboreans shifted tack, turning back towards Dori, with Ori beside him. Nori, still behind Dwalin, went carefully still once more.

"Ori and you," the dwarf growled, though with a more desperate note now. "And are we to believe that _he_ hasn't been teaching you things he shouldn't? He's a ..." He cut off, shying away from Dori. "He's been translating Westron for you for weeks now. Are we supposed to believe he hasn't ..."

" _Yes_ ," Bilbo cut in, because he was annoyed now. Not even angry, really, not the violent anger that'd had him running out to barrel into the dwarf attacking Ori. Just ... just temper, and aggravation, and bone-deep weariness. "Yes, you're supposed to believe that. Iglishmêk isn't forbidden. Khuzdul _is_. I've been in Dale for months now, exactly how stupid do you think I must be to miss that?" 

He growled angrily, because his head hurt, and his feet hurt, and he had _fur_ in his _teeth_ , and there wasn't a single one of his friends they hadn't insulted or attacked by this stage, and he'd had _enough_. He stepped out around Dori, glaring up at the dwarf, with no consideration at all for their relative sizes or proficiencies with weapons.

"I haven't stolen from you," he hissed, one finger stabbing upwards into the dwarf's chest (and finding, yes, a dent roughly the size of Dori's fist). "In fact, you could argue that I've stolen more from men and elves _for_ you, you ... you ..." He spat Sindarin for a moment, words he'd learned from Erestor and, that once, from Elrond. "I've taken books from them, their stories, and I've helped Ori translate them into words that dwarves, and _only_ dwarves, can read, and you're going to accuse me of stealing words from _you_!?"

Red-beard glared desperately down at him, but the mood had turned. He could feel it. The anger was still radiating silently and amiably from Bofur, Bifur glowering beside him. Dori and Ori had already made their feelings _violently_ plain. Now Dwalin too was glaring at them, his arms crossed and metal shining dully on his fists, with the guards mostly following his lead. And Nori, standing silently in the background, had been a silent, almost invisible threat since he'd walked into the room. Even Red-beard's own erstwhile allies were shuffling nervously, caught in too small a room with too many angry (and armed) opponents. And now their leader was been taken to task by the tiny little carrion-eater they'd wanted to take the brunt of their ire, and there were far too many not-so-harmless people in the room to take issue with it.

But he tried. Red-beard. Even still, he tried.

"And what will your brother think of this?" he asked quietly, looking at Dwalin. "Dwalin son of Fundin. Your brother and your king. What will _they_ think, when they see what the halfling is doing?"

It was ... a good hit, Bilbo thought, through a sudden rush of terror. As Dori blanched, and Ori flinched, and Bofur suddenly looked uncertain. Bilbo had no idea who Dwalin's brother was, or why he could apparently be spoken of in the same sentence as the Ereborean king, but he was guessing that whoever he was, he had something to do with Khuzdul, and enough power to make life very difficult for people. 

Bilbo cringed a little, Dori and Ori and Bifur and Bofur along with him, and for a brief moment Red-beard looked like he'd clawed back his triumph.

Then Dwalin curled his lip in a long, slow smile, his armour creaking as he lowered his arms to rock gently on his heels. Nori, behind him, had bizarrely _relaxed_ , a faint smirk playing over his lips.

"Don't rightly know," the guard grinned, tapping his knuckles thoughtfully. "Might ask him, next time he has cause to come down to Dale. Balin hasn't gotten out of the palace in a while." He nodded to himself, his smile decidedly dangerous. "Might mention to him that the hobbit has elvish stuff. He's been grumbling for two months that they haven't been able to get any since Thranduil's last messenger left in such a snit."

He smiled, black and dangerous, and stalked forward to stand nose-to-nose with the suddenly pale Ereborean. His fist coming up to rap, very gently, against Dori's dent.

"Be careful, lad," Dwalin murmured softly. "Next time. Be very, very careful, threatening to call down friends in high places when you _don't have them_." He gripped the dwarf's collar, almost gently, walking him backwards away from Bilbo. "My brother and I, we sort out our own problems, yes? You make a report of your suspicions, and we'll see if they're worth the spit they're written in, and then, at the end of all that, we'll do something about 'em. _But_." He smiled, slow and vicious. "One thing clear, laddie? If you _ever_ start a Mahal-cursed fight in my damn streets again, _I'll be finishing it_. Do we understand each other?"

Yes, Bilbo thought wildly. Not even on their part, but on his own. Yes, thank you, that was entirely clear. Dwalin's expression wasn't even angry, closer to happy, teeth and smiles and anticipation, and quite suddenly, Bilbo's estimation of both Nori's courage and his insanity went up a few notches. Honestly. What sane person would _willfully_ pick a fight with this dwarf?

Not Red-beard, anyway. Or any of his compatriots, who were suddenly very law-abiding and happy to go their way indeed. And Dwalin looked for a moment like he wasn't going to let them, like he'd happily have arrested the lot of them and put them somewhere dark and quiet for the night, but then he glanced at Bilbo, at Dori and Ori and the rest of them, and appeared to change his mind.

"Everybody out," Dwalin growled, closing his eyes and pressing steel-clad knuckles to his temple for a second. "The lot of you. Get out of my barracks _right now_ , and I'll forget the whole bloody thing. But if any of you blasted people are still in my sight when I open my eyes, you'll not see daylight for the next _week_."

There was a short pause, as various people glanced warily at each other and tried to decide if he was serious. And then, as Dwalin let out another growl, there was an instantaneous, utterly unanimous decision that elsewhere sounded _very nice_ , right around now. (Nori was, naturally enough, the last to saunter out. And Bilbo wasn't sure, but he thought the thief murmured something to Dwalin on the way, and if Dwalin didn't seem particularly happy about it, the guard also didn't open his eyes until Nori had had time to clear the barracks too).

For his part, though, Bilbo was too busy being plucked into the air between Dori and Bifur, who had apparently reached for him at precisely the same moment and then just decided to share, and hustled down the incline towards Dale in a tight, hurried cluster of dwarves. Ori was tight on his brother's heels, glancing warily at Bilbo, and Bofur was hurrying along behind them with his hat in his hands, muttering worriedly to himself.

It wasn't until they were back in the now-empty marketplace, the stalls and shops closed for evening, that Dori gently let Bilbo down with Bifur's help, Nori caught up, and the six of them simply stood there, clustered together, glancing worriedly at each other in the silence.

And then Bilbo looked up at them, five worried, apologetic faces clustered around him, seeing bumps and bruises and five people who'd apparently take a promise of service to him _very seriously_ indeed. Five ... five friends.

"Well," he said, with an odd, giddy bubble of cheer. "That went well, don't you think?"

What had he scheduled for this part of the evening, again? Ah, yes. The collapsing-in-a-shaking-heap part. 

Not to worry. He'd get to that right away.


End file.
